November 15, 2004

Recommending

Two quick recommendations for you. Go see The Incredibles. You like animation right? Of course you do. And you know that Pixar has consistently turned out some of the smartest feature-length animated films in years? Of course you do. The Incredibles marks their first genuine attempt at a film about people, not animals or toys, though still not entirely normal people either; it’s about super-heroes. This thing is crammed with great laughs and intelligent writing for interesting characters. Lots to enjoy here for everyone.

For music fans, get The Arcade Fire’s new album, Funeral. It’s catchy as hell and demands to be listened to again and again. I just heard it for the first time last week, and I am sad to say, I have probably listened to it at least once a day (maybe more, I am trying not to look too bad here). The Pitchfork Media review of the album put it perfectly, so I will not try and do it better, but I will show you some free music samples from the album. I am going to see these guys on Sunday and can’t wait.

Update

The show was nothing short of amazing. If you see these guys live and you ain’t moving, you must be dead. They pack the stage with six members (including a spastic Napoleon Dynamite look-alike) and jump from instrument to instrument, creating a thick, full sound. They ran through all of Funeral and even threw in The Talking Heads’ This must be the place for good measure. Beautifully harmonic and highly recommended.

One thing to mention about The Incredibles: although there has been as much hype about it as Finding Nemo, there are subtleties about The Incredibles that make it much better, in my opinion. For instance, the movie seems to be set in the early forties or fifties, and Pixar did an excellent job of washing out the color to reflect the time period. It’s the little things.

Yep, The Incredibles pretty great. But the reason why Pixar’s films have been so good is that they are not really about toys, monsters, fish or superheroes. Rather, they are about office politics, outgrowing relationships, parent-child relationships, mid-life crises, building real (vs. faux) self-esteem, etc. It’s also notable that kids in Pixar movies are (ironically) much more like real kids than the standard Hollywood version of kids.

Plus, animation fans should note the voice cameos by Disney animation legends Ollie Johnson and the late Frank Thomas, who provide an inside joke about “the old school.”

That’s right. There isn’t anything sad about listening to a certain album every day. I am not afraid to admit that I will sometimes listen to “Hard To Explain” off of The Strokes album, Is This It, on repeat for upwards of 6 hours. It has a hypnotic beat to it that melts together on repeats and is great to work to.